Wednesday Mar. 3, 2010
Two or three songs from The Starlings before class today ("Hand to Mouth," "Take Me to the
Fire," and perhaps "Gold Dust").
The revised Expt. #1 reports were collected today. The 1S1P Assignment #1 reports on El Nino
were due today.
The Experiment #3 materials were distributed today. I'll bring the few remaining sets of
materials to class on Friday.
The Quiz #2 Study Guide is now online.
Here's the simplified picture of radiative equilibrium on the earth that we came up with in class
on Monday. You should be able to identify each of the colored arrows in the figure above and
explain what they represent.
The greenhouse effect warms the surface of the earth. The next two figures explain why this is
so.
Energy balance without an atmosphere (left) and with an atmosphere that contains greenhouse
gases (right) the greenhouse effect. At left the ground is emitting 2 units of energy, at right the
ground is emitting 3 units. Remember that the amount of energy emitted by something depends
on temperature. The ground in the right picture must be warmer to be able to emit 3 arrows of
energy rather than 2 arrows.
Here's another explanation. At left the ground is getting 2 units of energy (from the sun). At
right it is getting three, two from the sun and one from the atmosphere. Doesn't it seem
reasonable that ground that absorbs 3 units of energy will be warmer than ground that is only
absorbing 2?
In our simplified explanation of the greenhouse effect we assumed that 100% of the sunlight
arriving at the earth passed through the atmosphere and got absorbed at the ground. Next we will
look at how realistic that assumption is.
The bottom figure above shows that on average (over the year and over the globe) only about
50% of the incoming sunlight makes it through the atmosphere and gets absorbed at the ground.
About 20% of the incoming sunlight is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere. Sunlight is a
mixture of UV, VIS, and IR light. Ozone and oxygen will absorb a lot of the UV (though there
isn't much UV in sunlight) and greenhouse gases will absorb some of the IR radiation in sunlight
(Roughly half of sunlight is IR light).
The remaining 30% of the incoming sunlight is reflected or scattered back into space (by the
ground, clouds, even air molecules).
Student performing Experiment #3 will be measuring the amount of sunlight energy arriving at
the ground. About 2 calories pass through a square centimeter per minute at the top of the
atmosphere. Since about half of this arrives at the ground on average, students should expect to
get an answer that is close to 1 calorie/cm2 min.
Next we will look at our simplified version of radiative equilibrium and a more realistic picture
of the earth's energy budget. Here's a figure from a previous semester.
In the top figure (the simplified representation of energy balance)you should recognize the
incoming sunlight (green), IR emitted by the ground that passes through the atmosphere (pink),
IR radiation emitted by the ground that is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
(orange) and IR radiation emitted by the atmosphere (dark blue). Using the colors you can find
each of these parts of the energy budget in the bottom figure. Notice that conduction,
convection, and latent heat energy transport are needed to bring the overall energy budget into
balance. The amount of energy transported by conduction, convection, and latent heat is small
compared to what is transported in the form of EM radiation.
The lower part of the figure is pretty complicated. It would be difficult to start with this figure
and find the greenhouse effect in it. That's why we used a simplied version. Once you
understand the upper figure, you should be able to find and understand the corresponding parts in
the lower figure.
(i) Two or three things to just note in the bottom figure. First the ground receives more energy
from the atmosphere (96 units) than it gets from the sun (51 units). {Part of the reason for this is
that the sun just shines for part of the day. We receive energy from the atmosphere 24 hours per
day.
(ii) The ground emits more energy (117 units) than it gets from the sun (51 units). It is able to
achieve energy balance because it gets lots of energy from the atmosphere.
(iii) The atmosphere emits 64 units upward and 96 units downward. This might be explained by
the lower atmosphere being warmer than higher up in the atmosphere. Part of the explanation is
also that there is more air in the bottom of the atmosphere than near the top of the atmosphere.
Next we will use our simplified representation of the greenhouse effect to understand the effects
of clouds on daytime high and nighttime low temperatures.
Here's the simplified picture of radiative equilibrium (something you're probably getting pretty
tired of seeing). The two pictures below show what happens at night when you remove the two
green rays of incoming sunlight.
The picture on the left shows a clear night. The ground is losing 3 arrows of energy and getting
one back from the atmosphere. That's a net loss of 2 arrows. The ground cools rapidly and gets
cold during the night.
A cloudy night is shown at right. Notice the effect of the clouds. Clouds are good absorbers of
infrared radiation. If we could see IR light, clouds would appear black, very different from what
we are used to (because clouds also emit IR light, if we could see IR light the clouds might also
glow). Now none of the IR radiation emitted by the ground passes through the atmosphere into
space. It is all absorbed either by greenhouse gases or by the clouds. Because the clouds and
atmosphere are now absorbing 3 units of radiation they must emit 3 units: 1 goes upward into
space, the other 2 downward to the ground. There is now a net loss at the ground of only 1
arrow.
The ground won't cool as quickly and won't get as cold on a cloudy night as it does on a clear
night. That makes for nice early morning bicycle rides this time of the year.
The next two figures compare clear and cloudy days.
Clouds are good reflectors of visible light. The effect of this is to reduce the amount of sunlight
energy reaching the ground in the right picture. With less sunlight being absorbed at the ground,
the ground doesn't need to get as warm to be in energy balance.
It is generally cooler during the day on a cloudy day than on a clear day.
Clouds raise the nighttime minimum temperature and lower the daytime maximum temperature.
Click here to see the Hidden Optional Assignment that I promised to insert into today's online
notes. Here are some typical daytime high and nighttime low temperature values on clear and
cloudy days for this time of the year. This figure wasn't shown in class.
We'll use our simplified representation of radiative equilibrium to understand enhancement of
the greenhouse effect and global warming. This material wasn't covered in class.
The figure (p. 72c in the photocopied Class Notes) on the left shows energy balance on the earth
without an atmosphere (or with an atmosphere that doesn't contain greenhouse gases). The
ground achieves energy balance by emitting only 2 units of energy to balance out what it is
getting from the sun. The ground wouldn't need to be very warm to do this.
If you add an atmosphere and greenhouse gases, the atmosphere will begin to absorb some of the
outgoing IR radiation. The atmosphere will also begin to emit IR radiation, upward into space
and downard toward the ground. After a period of adjustment you end up with a new energy
balance. The ground is warmer and is now emitting 3 units of energy even though it is only
getting 2 units from the sun. It can do this because it gets a unit of energy from the atmosphere.
In the right figure the concentration of greenhouse gases has increased even more (due to human
activities). The earth would find a new energy balance. In this case the ground would be
warmer and would be emitting 4 units of energy, but still only getting 2 units from the sun. With
more greenhouse gases, the atmosphere is now able to absorb 3 units of the IR emitted by the
ground. The atmosphere sends 2 back to the ground and 1 up into space.
The next figure shows a common misconception about the cause of global warming.
Many people know that sunlight contains UV light and that the ozone absorbs much of this
dangerous type of high energy radiation. People also know that release of chemicals such as
CFCs are destroying stratospheric ozone and letting some of this UV light reach the ground.
That is all correct.
They then conclude that it is this additional UV energy reaching the ground that is causing the
globe to warm. This is not correct. There isn't much UV light in sunlight in the first place and
the small amount of additional UV light reaching the ground won't be enough to cause global
warming. It will cause cataracts and skin cancer and those kinds of problems but not global
warming.